'No Teaching Work': Bihar College Teacher Offers To Return Rs 23.82 Lakh Earned As Salary

RK Thakur, the pro-vice chancellor of the university, has refused to accept the offer, saying “there is no provision” for such a seemingly idealistic move

Lalan Kumar, a 33-year-old academician in Bihar, has hit the headlines with his offer to return Rs 23.82 lakh that he had received as pay and other emoluments in the last two years and nine months. He has said the "abysmal attendance" of students in his college prompted him to take such a decision, according to a PTI report.

Kumar teaches Hindi literature in a college under the Baba Saheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar Bihar University. RK Thakur, the pro-vice chancellor of the university, has refused to accept the offer, saying “there is no provision” for such a seemingly idealistic move, the report said.

“I cannot put authorities at a gunpoint to accept the money. I wanted to make the point that if I am not able to do teaching work, I have no right to draw a salary. I think I have expressed my sentiment effectively enough,” Kumar was quoted as saying.

He was appointed as an assistant professor in 2019 after he cracked an exam conducted by the BPSC.

An alumnus of Delhi’s Hindu College who also went to Jawaharlal Nehru University later, Lalan Kumar said he was disappointed after not getting an opportunity in the PG Department of Bihar University despite his excellent academic career. 

He told PTI that he was “disappointed at the outset” since he was assigned one of the less fancied colleges in this north Bihar town “despite having been among the top 20 rankers” in BPSC.

Pro-VC Thakur acknowledged that he had received a number of applications from Kumar in the past, with a request of transfer to a better college if an assignment with the PG classes was not possible.

“His request could have been looked into but for the fact that the committee on transfers has not met in the past couple of years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is, however, surprising that never before did Lalan Kumar raise the issue of students not turning up for classes,” PTI quoted him as saying.

According to the report, college principal Manoj Kumar is annoyed after getting to know of Kumar’s “dramatic step” through media reports.

“If he felt so stifled in college, he should have had a word with me. He contacted the pro-VC directly, handed over the cheque and I learned about the whole episode from newspaper reports,” he was quoted as saying.